1998 and onwards: the Wall that was
The holes began to fill up with the assertive buildings that now take over the space of what had been the West Berlin side of Potsdamer Platz. For the most part these bombastic structures offer a theme park experience to tourists who expect to gawp, shop and eat.
An entrance to the U-Bahn has witnessed the changes but is now smothered by a building, while the once-proud Hotel Esplanade, now encaged by the Sony Centre, has become a mere Treffpunkt on a route that typically takes in Eisenman’s Jewish Holocaust Memorial, the Brandenburg Gate, and the Fosterized Reichstag surrounded by new government buildings.
The Wall-curious will find a few slabs serving as exhibition screens in front of the Mies-style entrance to the Potsdamer Platz Bahnhof. The really inquisitive will wonder about an etched line that runs across the Platz, disappearing into buildings to emerge randomly on the other side: the line of the Wall that was.
